The proposed project represents a continuation of research carried out under a grant from the Division of Nursing. The general area of investigation concerns nurses' inferences of suffering. Two specific lines of research are considered in the proposal: (1) the relation between nurses' inferences of suffering and nursing behaviors; (2) changes in nurses' beliefs about suffering during the course of their nursing education and first year of practice. The basic instrument to measure nurses' beliefs about suffering, The Standard Measure of Inferences of Suffering, was developed during the current research project. Reliability and validity of this instrument has been established. An observational schedule to record nursing behavior has been developed for use on medical-surgical units; this schedule will be revised for use on obstetric and pediatric units. The nursing behaviors of obstetric and pediatric nurses who infer relatively high patient suffering will be compared to the nursing behaviors of those who infer relatively low suffering. For the study of changes in beliefs about suffering, both a cross-sectional and longitudinal design will be followed, testing nursing students at various levels of training and during their first year of practice. Correlates of these changes will be investigated.